Francesco Lana Terzi
Francesco Lana Terzi (it. Francesco Lana de Terzi ; * December 10, 1631 in Brescia ; † February 22, 1687 ibid) was a Catholic priest of the Jesuit order who designed an airship in the 17th century and developed the idea of Braille .
Draft of an airship
In 1670, the Jesuit Francesco Lana Terzi published a book entitled Prodromo ovvero saggio di alcune invenzioni nuove premesso all'arte maestra (English: " Harbinger or attempt [essay] on some new inventions in advance of the main art") and described in it a "flying ship" whose wooden hull is reminiscent of a dugout canoe. Inspired by Otto von Guericke's experiments with the Magdeburg hemispheres in 1663, Lana (de) Terzi came up with a balloon theory.
His flying ship, which was never built, had a mast in the middle of the hull to which a sail was attached. It should be possible to steer the airship like a sailing ship. Furthermore, it was to have four masts to which balls made of copper were attached. The balls should be made of very thin copper sheet and each have a diameter of 7.5 meters. Terzi had calculated that the weight of a ball would be 180 kilograms, but that the air in the balls would weigh 290 kilograms. The copper balls should be evacuated and thus, since they would be lighter than the surrounding air, provide buoyancy and even allow 6 people to ride in this airship.
In his day it was not possible to produce such thin copper sheet, and the pressure of the surrounding air would have compressed the balls, which Lana de Terzi was not yet aware of. His idea was therefore never put into practice. Francesco Lana de Terzi was also aware that such a vehicle could also be used as a weapon of war and thus attack cities from the air and so he wrote himself: " God will not approve of such a machine being put into practice in order to prevent government and politics from being overturned ".
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proved in 1710 that the idea of such an airship working with vacuum spheres could not be realized in purely physical terms, and no such airship has been built to this day. A replica of Lana de Terzi's invention is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC . In his honor, the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee named Lana Point after him on September 23, 1960 , a headland on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The main belt asteroid (6892) Lana was also named after him.
Draft for a font for the blind
Also in his above-mentioned book Prodromo ... is the chapter "How a man born blind can not only learn to write, but also hide his secrets under a cipher and understand the answers in the same ciphers": Francesco Lana de Terzi considered various possibilities for Example a string or knot script, but also a secret script. This secret script should consist of a flat script, in which the letters are translated into a system of lines and provided with dots. Since they have raised structures on the paper, these lines and points would be palpable. He also recommended that when blind people want to write the scriptures of the sighted, they should use strings or wires to help them keep the lines. This makes him the inventor of the "manual guides", which are still used today - albeit in a modified form - when blind people write a short message for the sighted or give a signature.
Works
- Prodromo ovvero saggio di alcune inventione nuove premesso all'arte Maestra Opera che prepara il P. Francesco Lana, Bresciano della Compagnia di Giesu. Per mostrare li più reconditi proncipij della Naturale Filosofia, riconosciuti con accurata Teorica nelle più segnalate inventioni, ed isperienze fin'hora ritrovate da gli scrittori di questa materia & altre nuove dell'autore medesimo . - Brescia: Rizzardi, 1670 (new edition: Milan: Longanesi, 1977)
- Magisterium naturae et artis, opus physicale matematicum . - Brescia: Jo. Maria Ricciardi, 1684–86 [Volume 1 & 2] & Parma: H. Rosati, 1692 [Volume 3]
literature
- C. Preti: Lana Terzi, Francesco. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 63: Labroca-Laterza. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2004.
- Balthasar Wilhelm: The beginnings of aviation: Lana-Gusmão; in memory of the 200th anniversary of the first balloon ascent (Aug. 8, 1709 - Aug. 8, 1909) , Hamm i. W. 1909
- Ulrich Magin: Airships in the 17th Century? , in: JUFOF issue 158/2005, pages 60–61
- Flavio Mucia: La nave volante che ha fatto storia , in: Giornale di Brescia of March 10, 2005, page 33
- Carlos Sommervogel : Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, première partie: Bibliography par les pères Augustin et Aloys De Backer; seconde partie: Histoire par le père Carayon , Volume 4, Brussels 1960 (= first edition from 1893), pages 1441–1445
Web links
- Writings by Francesco Lana Terzi in the Opac of the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale ( standard entry )
- Entry in Pierer's Universal Lexikon , Volume 10. Altenburg 1860, p. 72
- B. Wilhelm: Francesco Lana . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Robert Appleton Company, New York 1913., also here
- The flying boat on postage stamps
- Braille illustration by Lana di Terzi
- A brief note on Braille by Lana de Terzi ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lana Terzi, Francesco |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Francesco Lana de Terzi; Francesco Lana di Terzi; Francesco Lana |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Jesuit and inventor of an airship and braille |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 10, 1631 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brescia |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 22, 1687 |
| Place of death | Brescia |